To achieve the desired performance enhancement for each successive generation of silicon integrated circuits (ICs), semiconductor manufacturing has become increasingly reliant on new materials and their integration into advanced process sequences. Unfortunately, typical semiconductor manufacturing equipment is not well suited for materials exploration and integration. Issues impacting the use of typical semiconductor manufacturing equipment include difficulty in changing process materials and chemicals rapidly, limited ability to integrate and sequence multiple materials or chemicals in a single reactor or process chamber, high equipment cost, large sample size (300 mm wafer) and inflexible process/reactor configurations. To complement traditional manufacturing tools, a need has arisen for process equipment that facilitates fast testing of new materials and materials processing sequences over a wide range of process conditions.
Equipment facilitating this fast testing must deliver accurate quantities of process fluids in order to achieve accurate results, especially where small volumes of liquids are utilized. In some instances the delivery equipment for the liquid, e.g., a flow meter, is calibrated by the manufacturer. However, this calibration is not capable of being performed under the conditions that the delivery equipment is used by an end user. This may lead to inaccuracies in fluid delivery when the delivery equipment is employed by the end user under actual processing conditions different than the calibration conditions.
It is within this context that the embodiments arise.